Old Friends, Epistolary Parody | Page 3

give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that
you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:

[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1890 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition.

OLD FRIENDS

PREFACE

The studies in this volume originally appeared in the "St. James's
Gazette." Two, from a friendly hand, have been omitted here by the
author of the rest, as non sua poma. One was by Mr. RICHARD
SWIVELLER to a boon companion and brother in the lyric Apollo; the
other, though purporting to have been addressed by Messrs. DOMBEY
& SON to Mr. TOOTS, is believed, on internal evidence, to have been
composed by the patron of the CHICKEN himself. A few prefatory
notes, an introductory essay, and two letters have been added.
The portrait in the frontispiece, copied by Mr. T. Hodge from an old
painting in the Club at St. Andrews, is believed to represent the Baron
Bradwardine addressing himself to his ball.
A. L.

FRIENDS IN FICTION

Every fancy which dwells much with the unborn and immortal
characters of Fiction must ask itself, Did the persons in contemporary
novels never meet? In so little a world their paths must often have
crossed, their orbits must have intersected, though we hear nothing
about the adventure from the accredited narrators. In historical fiction
authors make their people meet real men and women of history--Louis
XI., Lazarus, Mary Queen of Scots, General Webbe, Moses, the Man in
the Iron Mask, Marie Antoinette; the list is endless. But novelists, in
spite of Mr. Thackeray's advice to Alexandre Dumas, and of his own
example in "Rebecca and Rowena," have not introduced each other's
characters. Dumas never pursued the fortunes of the Master of
Ravenswood after he was picked up by that coasting vessel in the
Kelpie's Flow. Sometimes a meeting between characters in novels by
different hands looked all but unavoidable. "Pendennis" and "David
Copperfield" came out simultaneously in numbers, yet Pen never

encountered Steerforth at the University, nor did Warrington, in his life
of journalism, jostle against a reporter named David Copperfield. One
fears that the Major would have called Steerforth a tiger, that Pen
would have been very loftily condescending to the nephew of Betsy
Trotwood. But Captain Costigan would scarcely have refused to take a
sip of Mr. Micawber's punch, and I doubt, not that Litimer would have
conspired darkly with Morgan, the Major's sinister man. Most of those
delightful sets of old friends, the Dickens and Thackeray people, might
well have met, though they belonged to very different worlds. In older
novels, too, it might easily have chanced that Mr. Edward Waverley of
Waverley Honour, came into contact with Lieutenant Booth, or, after
the Forty-five, with Thomas Jones, or, in Scotland, Balmawhapple
might have foregathered with Lieutenant Lismahagow. Might not even
Jeanie Deans have crossed the path of Major Lambert of the
"Virginians," and been helped on